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Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation
Beginning from purely philosophical premises, and ranging over human life, art and institutions, the author surveys the entire field of sexuality. Dissatisfied with puritanism and permissiveness, he argues for a radical break. Upholding traditional morality - his argument gravitates to that which is consoling in the experience of sexual love.
448 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1986
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About the author
Roger Scruton
138 books1,359 followersSir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.
In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 19, 2015
"In the heterosexual act, it might be said, I move out from my body towards the other, whose flesh is unknown to me; while in the homosexual act I remain locked within my body narcissistically contemplating in the other an excitement that is the mirror of my own." - this dude in this book
yikes! this was published in 1986?
yikes! this was published in 1986?
June 2, 2020
I shall argue that there is indeed a biological basis to our sexual conduct; but I shall reject the implication that it provides the core of sexual experience. The best way to understand the position for which I shall argue is in terms of an analogy. A tree grows in the soil, from which it takes its nourishment, and without which it would be nothing. And it could be almost nothing to us if it did not also spread itself in foliage, flower and fruit. In a similar way, human sexuality grows from the soil of the reproductive urge, from which it takes its life, and without which it would be nothing. Furthermore, it would be nothing for us, if it did not flourish in personal form, clothing itself in the flower and foliage of desire. When we understand each other as sexual beings, we see, not the soil which lies hidden beneath the leaves, but the leaves themselves, in which the matter of animality is intelligible, only because it has acquired a personal form. Animal and person are, in the end, inextricable, and just as the fact of sexual existence crucially qualifies our understanding of each other as persons, so does our personal existence make it impossible to understand sexuality in ‘purely animal’ terms.
Given the existence of gender, we can no longer assume that the sexual act between humans is the same act as that performed by animals. Every feature of the sexual act, down to its very physiology, is transformed by our conception of gender. When making love I am consciously being a man, and this enterprise involves my whole nature, and strives to realise itself in the motions of the act itself. Although the man who enters a woman, or the woman who encloses a man, are satisfying a primitive urge, and experiencing whatever sensations and palpitations may accompany the fulfilment of that urge, this is not a description of ‘what they are doing’ in the act of love. Even if they are acutely conscious of the process - and it is to be supposed that their thoughts abound in fantasies which direct them constantly to the source of their physical pleasure - it is not the physical process, described as such, which constitutes the object of their intention.
__________
Freud was wrong. This should be required reading.
__________
It has to be recognised that there is much more to the sexual act than its final stage: there is a desire to kiss and caress, and pleasure associated with those activities.
Arousal transforms this pleasure into a sexual pleasure. But it is the pleasure of kissing - the pleasure which one person takes in another, when expressing his affection - that is transformed. It is not the ‘physical pleasure’ (whatever that may be) felt in the mouth or on the cheek, but what I shall call the ‘intentional pleasure’, involved in the recognition of the meaning of another’s gesture. Arousal seems to affect, not so much the sensation of kissing, as its ‘intentional content’: although the sensation itself is by no means insulated from the thought which provides its context.
We must, indeed, always distinguish intentional from non-intentional pleasures. Some pleasures are essentially pleasures at or about an object; others (like the pleasure of a hot bath) are merely pleasures of sensation.
Furthermore, the sexual organs do not appear, so to speak, neutrally to us, at times of arousal. The sexual organ undergoes a transformation which is essentially dramatic, and not merely physiological. Both in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of the other the sexual organ becomes the self. To be penetrated by a man’s penis is to be penetrated by him (to be enclosed by a woman’s vagina is to be enclosed by her).
Although a pretty face surmounting a deformed or mutilated body may indeed fail to arouse sexual interest, it is well known that a pretty face may compensate for much bodily ugliness. A beautiful body, however, will always be rendered repulsive by an ugly face, and can certainly never compensate for it.
It is in the face that our life is revealed—and revealed precisely in what is most involuntary. Moreover, since facial beauty is to a great extent a matter of expression, its attractiveness is the attractiveness of life itself.
To see the orgasm as the aim of desire is as misguided as to see the exultation experienced by a player upon scoring a goal as the aim of football, rather than as a pleasurable offshoot of an aim fulfilled.
The lover for whom every hair on his beloved’s head is of individual significance is like the aesthete who ponders every note of a score. This kind of lust for detail is an inevitable dramatic continuation of attentive interest which, because it regards everything as relevant, tries also to find nothing insignificant.
To say that desire is non-transferable is not to say that it is exclusive. Someone may desire several people: but not with the same desire.
As we ascend into the territory of love we shall see more clearly that this confrontation with our embodiment is inescapable, and that, besides renunciation, there is no other salve than love and desire.
The genuinely erotic work is one which invites the reader to re-create in imagination the first-person point of view of someone party to an erotic encounter. The pornographic work retains as a rule the third-person perspective of the voyeuristic observer.
Some welcome this fact, believing that we need to ‘release’ our pent-up animal spirits. But we must not assume that, because our sexual desires are constructed upon a foundation of animal impulse, that it is the animal impulse that we need, and seek, to gratify.
The person in love sees his beloved’s personality in all his acts and gestures, and is, as we might express it, spellbound by them. The person who falls in love makes the reverse assimilation: he sees gestures and features which awaken his desire, and, in order that desire should justify the effort to which it at once commits him, he imagines a personality to fit what he sees. This is the ‘idealisation’ of the object of desire. Thereafter all is discovery and deception, or, if his imagination triumphs, confirmation of the initial wish.
Initially there is no distinction between love and ‘infatuation’: the difference is revealed when the lover is submitted to a ‘trial’—and that is why true love requires a period of courtship, and why Tamino’s love for Pamina must be subjected to ordeal.
The person who falls in love wants the smile, the words, the acts of the other to be ‘for him’, in the sense of being done always in some measure for his sake. He feels, on perceiving the other, a premonition of ‘home’.
The first feature of jealousy, therefore, is that it involves some degree of love. And the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Jealousy is a catastrophe suffered only by those who have entered the condition of ‘ontological dependence’ that exists in erotic love—the dependence of one who has sought, in and through sexual desire, the consolations of a perfect intimacy. But the cause of the catastrophe is the discovery not that the beloved loves another, but that he desires another . . . It is possible to be jealous even of the most casual encounter (and indeed, especially of the most casual encounter) provided only that it was the occasion of desire.
It is true that the person in love wishes his beloved to want him as the unique irreplaceable individual that he is, and he wishes this to be the determining thought which underlies the movement of his beloved’s desire. At the same time, however, he wants his beloved to focus on his body, and so to want him as a man, or as a woman, as an example of his sex
Because of this feature, jealous thoughts are frequently exciting. The jealous lover sees constantly unveiled before his imagination the scene of a sexual fantasy, in which the beloved is wrapped in desire and then given to another. He prostitutes his beloved in his thoughts, which are invaded, like Othello’s, by a sense of the obscene - by the perception of the sexual act in its bodily terms, freed from the circumstance of love. The torment of jealousy is also an excitement. In order to heighten the fantasy, the jealous lover may become relentlessly curious. He may want to know every detail, even ‘how it felt’.
But we should notice here that a man’s jealousy of lesbian relations, precisely because it does not involve ‘phallic’ thoughts, escapes much of the wounding affliction of normal jealousy. It is often easier to live with the fact of your wife’s desire for a woman than with the fact of her desire for a man. The former, unlike the latter, does not afflict you with the thought that precisely you are dispensable in your sexual part.
As Kierkegaard argues (following Mozart), the character of Don Juan is genuinely erotic, not because he transfers his attentions from individual to individual, but, on the contrary, because he concentrates them completely upon the present individual whom he is attempting to seduce. His character is concentrated into the act of seduction, and this is what gives him the charm which awakens desire . . . Don Juanism is therefore the most time-consuming and indeed debilitating of all sexual addictions; it requires the constant re-creation of passion, and with it the strategies of seduction, towards an unlimited number of objects . . . although he in a sense desires all womanhood, desires womanhood only as and when concentrated into the form and personality of each irreplaceable woman.
Man’s destiny is to transcend the erotic, discarding in this act of transcendence the element of desire. However, to love is to love an individual. It is only in his embodiment that the individual is revealed, and only in his embodiment that he may be individually known.
The experience of ‘love at first sight’ is really nothing more nor less than the experience of an intense desire, which commands through the physical embodiment of the other.
In kissing him, I imprint on his flesh the sign of my own good feelings for him, and the pleasure lies in the immediate sense that he perceives me thus. For a moment, during the glance, caress or kiss of love, our separateness is extinguished, and our perspectives invaded by the sense of another’s desire.
She is impressed less by his youth than by his power. Everything that promises security is capable of arousing her affections, and even a far older man may excite her, provided there is, in his look, his smell, his conversation or his social manner, the necessary virtues of a father. The authoritative glance, the resolute action, the confident enjoyment of social pre-eminence: all such qualities will be as important in the woman’s eyes as her youth, freshness and vitality are important in the eyes of a man.
Men and women develop separate characters, separate virtues, separate vices and separate social roles. The modern consciousness is less disposed to admit those facts than was Aristotle, say, or Hume .
In the final surrender to desire, we experience our incarnate nature; we know, then, the ‘truth’ of gender: which is that, as embodied creatures, we are inseparable from our sex.
The distinction between man and woman is a distinction of sphere, of activity, of role and of responses; it is also a distinction within the structure of desire. We may fight against these distinctions; we may wish to remodel them, even to destroy them altogether. But they exist, and not a few philosophers have drawn extraordinary conclusions which depend, for their plausibility, upon our acceptance of the given gender identities as natural.
Fashion is a cooperative activity, whereby men and women—and especially women—attempt to make gender new and surprising . . . Fashion displays what is common to every woman, so as to permit her individuality to shine forth from the frame of her gender, as the thing that is truly desired in it.
The sex-change patient undertakes this hazardous operation, not in order to change his ‘real sex’, but in order to change his body, to the sex that is really his. In other words, he identifies his sex through his gender, and his gender not through his body but through his conception of himself. His body, he feels, belongs to a kind to which he himself does not belong. It is on this ground that sex-change operations are both desired by those who undergo them and justified by those who perform them.
The universality in question is, however, not that of sex, but that of gender. The other appears to me, even in the sexual act, not as the naked animal, but as a person, clothed in the moral attributes of his gender. In desiring him I see him as essentially embodied, and his body as essentially ensouled; the gap between soul and body is closed for me by my desire. It is hard to imagine this utter unity in the intentional object arising from a non-sexual motive. Interpersonal union which culminates in swimming together, walking together, talking together, does not focus upon the reality of the other’s body in quite the way of the sexual act. It is only when kisses and caresses become part of the aim of interpersonal union, and the true source of pleasure, that we are forced to see the other’s body as truly him, and contact with his body as contact with him. Sexual desire must therefore involve such activities as kissing and caressing if it is to fulfil its fundamental aim. It is surely obvious, therefore, that the natural culmination of these activities — the sexual act — should become incorporated into the intentional content of desire. Desire both exploits and confirms our concept of gender, by refusing to countenance the separation between a person and his body. The sexual act is, both biologically and intentionally, the culmination of a process of physical intimacy, in which a person is joined to another through his body. None of our bodily functions is so well fitted to this union as is the sexual function, provided that sex is perceived under the aspect of gender — perceived, in other words, as a personal attribute, rather than as a merely biological fact.
The other sex is forever to some extent a mystery to us, with a dimension of experience that we can imagine but never inwardly know. In desiring to unite with it, we are desiring to mingle with something that is deeply — perhaps essentially — not ourselves, and which brings us to experience a character and inwardness that challenge us with their strangeness.
Fellatio, for example, and cunnilingus, both of which have immense symbolic significance, and neither of which can be excluded from the natural lyricism of the kiss.
As Nagel points out, however, a perversion is not an act but a disposition—in other words, a motive from which actions spring.
April 23, 2017
Carl Sagan said in his classic television series, Cosmos, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That line kept coming to mind as I read Roger Scruton’s Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. If you wish to understand sexual desire, you must first understand human nature. Scruton investigates sexual desire by developing an understanding of its foundation in our lived experience, our first-person perspective. The essential feature of sexual desire in Scruton’s view is its interpersonal nature.
Scruton begins by distinguishing his approach from what could be called the third-person perspective of science, particularly evolutionary science, in its approach to sexuality. Scruton is emphatically not opposed to the scientific approach and accepts as fact humanity’s evolutionary heritage. Humans are animals and can be understood as products of physical, biological, and genetic factors. But this view of human nature does not exhaust everything that can be said about it. Science may look at human behavior and posit explanatory theories without looking into the reasons humans give for their own behavior. But human behavior can also be understood from a first-person perspective and a second-person perspective. Why am I doing what I am doing? Why are you doing what you are doing? And this is the natural way we understand our own behavior and interact with each other. This kind of first-person approach is in the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and Scruton calls this world of lived experience the Lebenswelt, (life-world) a term used by the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. In another work Scruton has named this approach of seeing one reality in two ways “cognitive dualism”, which he contrasts with ontological dualism. While these two approaches may be largely non-overlapping there are instances in his view where one may intrude onto the other illegitimately. Sociobiology and Freudian psychology are two fields he believes commit this error by attempting to explain away the first-person perspective through excessive reduction.
The experience of sexual desire from this first-person perspective is grounded in the interpersonal encounter. Sexual desire is not merely a need for mechanical stimulation of erogenous zones in the body. It is rather dependent on an awareness of the self-consciousness of another person. The look of desire is imbued with a sense of reflexivity in “me seeing you seeing me”. Further, Scruton takes Hegel’s view that this kind of exchange between two persons is the ultimate basis for self-consciousness, we develop a sense of self when confronted with the otherness of another self. Because of this, sexual desire is tied to our deepest source of self-identity, a point which heightens its moral significance. The body is not unimportant in sexual desire. It is of critical importance. But rather than being the singular focus of sexual desire the body is the way a person is desired. Scruton refers to this as “embodiment”. A body is not desired for its own sake but is desired as the self-conscious person.
Scruton’s phenomenological, first-person perspective is by nature subjective. This is both its strength and weakness. The weakness is that the lived experience it points to is not something accessible by methods of science, with its standards of testability and falsifiability. The account he gives relies on the reader to weigh it against his own lived experience. This may not be as satisfying as the objective features of the world which we can measure, irrespective of who is doing the measuring. But there is no other way to talk about such things. And this is the strength of the approach. The features of the life-world Scruton picks out are not objective but they are, if an accurate description of that experience, incorrigible; your immediate experience cannot be inaccurate about your immediate experience, whatever else it may be inaccurate about. Scruton is at pains to stress that he is not endorsing a completely separate inner world that is only comprehensible to the individual, what Wittgenstein called a “private language”. But he does avail himself of the notion that one’s own first-person perspective is authoritative for that perspective. It may be possible still to be dishonest when communicating that experience to others but it is not possible to be mistaken about immediate experience. That is a strength for his argument if his account is accurate.
If it is true to lived experience that the interpersonal encounter is the core of sexual desire this has certain implications for sexual well-being and morality. And sexual well-being and morality are essentially coincident with each other. Sexual experiences that lack this interpersonal character are at least deficient compared to those that have it. At worst, sexual activities divorced from interpersonal interaction can be harmful to one’s ability to have or enjoy the deeper interpersonal interactions of healthy sexuality. Inferior sexual behavior can be literally impersonal, such as with masturbation, or effectively impersonal, as when a person is treated not as a self-conscious subject but as an object, as with pornography for example.
Scruton arrives at fairly conservative positions on sexual morality and sexuality generally. But his approach is neither theological nor traditional by necessity. He contends that the norms of traditional sexual morality need not be absurd even though there may be no God who forbids them. But although his approach is not theological it is not atheistic either. Rather, he seeks to build a logical argument for sexual morality independent of theology and tradition, though he admits that these are the means through which they are almost always learned in practice. Though he does not put it this way explicitly it could be said that he is getting behind the norms of theology and tradition to illuminate the reasons for them; God’s reasons for willing what He wills, as one scholar has put it.
This gets to what I see as the value of this kind of investigation. No one needed a philosopher to tell them that sexuality is important. But beyond that fact there is a lot of confusion about the role of sex in human life. It is not clear that reliance on tradition or theology will any longer be adequate for various reasons. For one thing, both religion and tradition are open to challenge. The multiplicity of religions and traditions in a globalized world are also incompatible and lead to different conclusions. For example, both monogamy and female genital mutilation are traditionally and religiously enjoined, but I believe the second of these is horribly wrong. There needs to be some way to understand sexuality and communicate about it across different religions and traditions. A philosophical investigation, working down to the first-person human experience is a method to start from something as general, but foundational, as human nature and understand sexuality in that context.
Scruton begins by distinguishing his approach from what could be called the third-person perspective of science, particularly evolutionary science, in its approach to sexuality. Scruton is emphatically not opposed to the scientific approach and accepts as fact humanity’s evolutionary heritage. Humans are animals and can be understood as products of physical, biological, and genetic factors. But this view of human nature does not exhaust everything that can be said about it. Science may look at human behavior and posit explanatory theories without looking into the reasons humans give for their own behavior. But human behavior can also be understood from a first-person perspective and a second-person perspective. Why am I doing what I am doing? Why are you doing what you are doing? And this is the natural way we understand our own behavior and interact with each other. This kind of first-person approach is in the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and Scruton calls this world of lived experience the Lebenswelt, (life-world) a term used by the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. In another work Scruton has named this approach of seeing one reality in two ways “cognitive dualism”, which he contrasts with ontological dualism. While these two approaches may be largely non-overlapping there are instances in his view where one may intrude onto the other illegitimately. Sociobiology and Freudian psychology are two fields he believes commit this error by attempting to explain away the first-person perspective through excessive reduction.
The experience of sexual desire from this first-person perspective is grounded in the interpersonal encounter. Sexual desire is not merely a need for mechanical stimulation of erogenous zones in the body. It is rather dependent on an awareness of the self-consciousness of another person. The look of desire is imbued with a sense of reflexivity in “me seeing you seeing me”. Further, Scruton takes Hegel’s view that this kind of exchange between two persons is the ultimate basis for self-consciousness, we develop a sense of self when confronted with the otherness of another self. Because of this, sexual desire is tied to our deepest source of self-identity, a point which heightens its moral significance. The body is not unimportant in sexual desire. It is of critical importance. But rather than being the singular focus of sexual desire the body is the way a person is desired. Scruton refers to this as “embodiment”. A body is not desired for its own sake but is desired as the self-conscious person.
Scruton’s phenomenological, first-person perspective is by nature subjective. This is both its strength and weakness. The weakness is that the lived experience it points to is not something accessible by methods of science, with its standards of testability and falsifiability. The account he gives relies on the reader to weigh it against his own lived experience. This may not be as satisfying as the objective features of the world which we can measure, irrespective of who is doing the measuring. But there is no other way to talk about such things. And this is the strength of the approach. The features of the life-world Scruton picks out are not objective but they are, if an accurate description of that experience, incorrigible; your immediate experience cannot be inaccurate about your immediate experience, whatever else it may be inaccurate about. Scruton is at pains to stress that he is not endorsing a completely separate inner world that is only comprehensible to the individual, what Wittgenstein called a “private language”. But he does avail himself of the notion that one’s own first-person perspective is authoritative for that perspective. It may be possible still to be dishonest when communicating that experience to others but it is not possible to be mistaken about immediate experience. That is a strength for his argument if his account is accurate.
If it is true to lived experience that the interpersonal encounter is the core of sexual desire this has certain implications for sexual well-being and morality. And sexual well-being and morality are essentially coincident with each other. Sexual experiences that lack this interpersonal character are at least deficient compared to those that have it. At worst, sexual activities divorced from interpersonal interaction can be harmful to one’s ability to have or enjoy the deeper interpersonal interactions of healthy sexuality. Inferior sexual behavior can be literally impersonal, such as with masturbation, or effectively impersonal, as when a person is treated not as a self-conscious subject but as an object, as with pornography for example.
Scruton arrives at fairly conservative positions on sexual morality and sexuality generally. But his approach is neither theological nor traditional by necessity. He contends that the norms of traditional sexual morality need not be absurd even though there may be no God who forbids them. But although his approach is not theological it is not atheistic either. Rather, he seeks to build a logical argument for sexual morality independent of theology and tradition, though he admits that these are the means through which they are almost always learned in practice. Though he does not put it this way explicitly it could be said that he is getting behind the norms of theology and tradition to illuminate the reasons for them; God’s reasons for willing what He wills, as one scholar has put it.
This gets to what I see as the value of this kind of investigation. No one needed a philosopher to tell them that sexuality is important. But beyond that fact there is a lot of confusion about the role of sex in human life. It is not clear that reliance on tradition or theology will any longer be adequate for various reasons. For one thing, both religion and tradition are open to challenge. The multiplicity of religions and traditions in a globalized world are also incompatible and lead to different conclusions. For example, both monogamy and female genital mutilation are traditionally and religiously enjoined, but I believe the second of these is horribly wrong. There needs to be some way to understand sexuality and communicate about it across different religions and traditions. A philosophical investigation, working down to the first-person human experience is a method to start from something as general, but foundational, as human nature and understand sexuality in that context.
July 10, 2025
Absolutely loved (for the most part, with minor caveats).
"Although a pretty face surmounting a deformed or mutilated body may indeed fail to arouse sexual interest, it is well known that a pretty face may compensate for much bodily ugliness...A beautiful body, however, will always be rendered repulsive by an ugly face, and can certainly never compensate for it. It is in the face that our life is revealed - and revealed precisely in what is most involuntary. Moreover, since facial beauty is to a great extent a matter of expression, its attractiveness is the attractiveness of life itself."
"The other sex is forever to some extent a mystery to us, with a dimension of experience that we can imagine but never inwardly know. In desiring to unite with it, we are desiring to mingle with something that is deeply perhaps essentially - not ourselves, and which brings us to experience a character and inwardness that challenge us with their strangeness."
"The lover for whom every hair on his beloved's head is of individual significance is like the aesthete who ponders every note of a score. This kind of lust for detail is an inevitable dramatic continuation of attentive interest which, because it regards everything as relevant, tries also to find nothing insignificant."
"Man's destiny is to transcend the erotic, discarding in this act of transcendence the element of desire. However, to love is to love an individual. It is only in his embodiment that the individual is revealed, and only in his embodiment that he may be individually known."
"Desire both exploits and confirms our concept of gender, by refusing to countenance the separation between a person and his body."
"The person in love sees his beloved's personality in all his acts and gestures, and is, as we might express it, spellbound by them. The person who fa lls in love makes the reverse assimilation: he sees gestures and features which awaken his desire, and, in order that desire should justify the effort to which it at once commits him, he imagines a personality to fit what he sees. This is the 'idealisation' of the object of desire. Thereafter all is discovery and deception, or, if his imagination triumphs, confirmation of the initial wish. Initially there is no distinction between love and 'infatuation': the difference is revealed when the lover is submitted to a 'trial' -and that is why true love requires a period of courtship, and why Tamino's love for Pamina must be subjected to ordeal. The person who falls in love wants the smile, the words, the acts of the other to be 'for him', in the sense of being done always in some measure for his sake. He feels, on perceiving the other, a premonition of 'home'; of that which is 'mine by right."
"The first feature of jealousy, therefore, is that it involves some degree of love. And the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Jealousy is a catastrophe suffered only by those who have entered the condition of 'ontological dependence' that exists in erotic love-the dependence of one who has sought, in and through sexual desire, the consolations of a perfect intimacy. But the cause of the catastrophe is the discovery not that the beloved loves another, but that he desires another. The beloved's sexual desire is the pivotal feature of the jealous person's interest, and he may tolerate any favour granted to his rival, save this one. It is possible to be jealous even of the most casual encounter (and indeed, especially of the most casual encounter) provided only that it was the occasion of desire. It does not matter that your rival is not loved. Nor does it matter that he does not exist, that he is no more than the fantasy about whose body your beloved's arms close in his imagination, when they close in reality about yourself. Of course there is an element of insanity in this jealousy of phantoms. But it is no more than a distant point along the road upon which every lover embarks, just so soon as the 'green-eyed monster' catches sight of him....The explanation of the catastrophe lies...in the clash between the individualising and the universalising elements in desire. Although sexual desire has an individualised object, it is bound up with interest in the other's sex...It is true that the person in love wishes his beloved to want him as the unique irreplaceable individual that he is, and he wishes this to be the determining thought which underlies the movement of his beloved's desire. At the same time, however, he wants his beloved to focus on his body, and so to want him as a man, or as a woman, as an example of his sex: not as someone who might have been replaced in this act by another, but rather as primus inter pares, the best of the bunch. It is not that his desire is transferable; but rather that it provokes a sexual interest which, potentially at least, may reach out towards other objects. This element is integral to sexual excitement, and is part of what permits John to see Mary as 'giving herself' to passion, as 'surrendering' her individuality to her sexual impulse, which 'overcomes' her."
"Although a pretty face surmounting a deformed or mutilated body may indeed fail to arouse sexual interest, it is well known that a pretty face may compensate for much bodily ugliness...A beautiful body, however, will always be rendered repulsive by an ugly face, and can certainly never compensate for it. It is in the face that our life is revealed - and revealed precisely in what is most involuntary. Moreover, since facial beauty is to a great extent a matter of expression, its attractiveness is the attractiveness of life itself."
"The other sex is forever to some extent a mystery to us, with a dimension of experience that we can imagine but never inwardly know. In desiring to unite with it, we are desiring to mingle with something that is deeply perhaps essentially - not ourselves, and which brings us to experience a character and inwardness that challenge us with their strangeness."
"The lover for whom every hair on his beloved's head is of individual significance is like the aesthete who ponders every note of a score. This kind of lust for detail is an inevitable dramatic continuation of attentive interest which, because it regards everything as relevant, tries also to find nothing insignificant."
"Man's destiny is to transcend the erotic, discarding in this act of transcendence the element of desire. However, to love is to love an individual. It is only in his embodiment that the individual is revealed, and only in his embodiment that he may be individually known."
"Desire both exploits and confirms our concept of gender, by refusing to countenance the separation between a person and his body."
"The person in love sees his beloved's personality in all his acts and gestures, and is, as we might express it, spellbound by them. The person who fa lls in love makes the reverse assimilation: he sees gestures and features which awaken his desire, and, in order that desire should justify the effort to which it at once commits him, he imagines a personality to fit what he sees. This is the 'idealisation' of the object of desire. Thereafter all is discovery and deception, or, if his imagination triumphs, confirmation of the initial wish. Initially there is no distinction between love and 'infatuation': the difference is revealed when the lover is submitted to a 'trial' -and that is why true love requires a period of courtship, and why Tamino's love for Pamina must be subjected to ordeal. The person who falls in love wants the smile, the words, the acts of the other to be 'for him', in the sense of being done always in some measure for his sake. He feels, on perceiving the other, a premonition of 'home'; of that which is 'mine by right."
"The first feature of jealousy, therefore, is that it involves some degree of love. And the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Jealousy is a catastrophe suffered only by those who have entered the condition of 'ontological dependence' that exists in erotic love-the dependence of one who has sought, in and through sexual desire, the consolations of a perfect intimacy. But the cause of the catastrophe is the discovery not that the beloved loves another, but that he desires another. The beloved's sexual desire is the pivotal feature of the jealous person's interest, and he may tolerate any favour granted to his rival, save this one. It is possible to be jealous even of the most casual encounter (and indeed, especially of the most casual encounter) provided only that it was the occasion of desire. It does not matter that your rival is not loved. Nor does it matter that he does not exist, that he is no more than the fantasy about whose body your beloved's arms close in his imagination, when they close in reality about yourself. Of course there is an element of insanity in this jealousy of phantoms. But it is no more than a distant point along the road upon which every lover embarks, just so soon as the 'green-eyed monster' catches sight of him....The explanation of the catastrophe lies...in the clash between the individualising and the universalising elements in desire. Although sexual desire has an individualised object, it is bound up with interest in the other's sex...It is true that the person in love wishes his beloved to want him as the unique irreplaceable individual that he is, and he wishes this to be the determining thought which underlies the movement of his beloved's desire. At the same time, however, he wants his beloved to focus on his body, and so to want him as a man, or as a woman, as an example of his sex: not as someone who might have been replaced in this act by another, but rather as primus inter pares, the best of the bunch. It is not that his desire is transferable; but rather that it provokes a sexual interest which, potentially at least, may reach out towards other objects. This element is integral to sexual excitement, and is part of what permits John to see Mary as 'giving herself' to passion, as 'surrendering' her individuality to her sexual impulse, which 'overcomes' her."
February 20, 2017
This one was very helpful and is worth reading if only for the way that Scruton diagnoses and treats the pathological Platonic distinction between "intellectual" love and "animal" desire. There are some dense chapters of tight philosophical argumentation that I can't claim to have completely understood, but overall Scruton makes his points perspicuously and compellingly. He throws some very fun zingers at Freud/Kinsey/"sexology", but here, as is always the case with him, he is at his best when promoting his own views, and those of the thinkers he admires. If I have criticisms, they would be concerning his very strange conclusions about sadomasochism, and his general over-reliance on Kant.
July 8, 2017
Traditionalism at its most philosophically sophisticated.
November 25, 2018
"Love has an aim which is separate from that of desire. Love seeks companionship, in which mutual well-being will be the common purpose; it is nourished on counsels and conversations, on gifts and tokens, on affection, loyalty and esteem. Moreover, love involves dependence. It is not a commodity that can be received, now from this provider, now from that. To love is to acquire a need for another individual, and to wish for one's solace there, with him. Hence, where love is, there too is the certainty of grief."
I didn't follow along with all the finer points of Scruton's dense philosophy (which swiftly disappointed any latent prurient interest I may have had in the book), but still found this immensely insightful, and sometimes even (the passage quoted above, for instance) quite moving.
I didn't follow along with all the finer points of Scruton's dense philosophy (which swiftly disappointed any latent prurient interest I may have had in the book), but still found this immensely insightful, and sometimes even (the passage quoted above, for instance) quite moving.
April 5, 2016
Three stars because I'm an idiot. This is a book of philosophy written to philosophers, which I'm not. I really appreciated some of his categories for thinking but golly. Dense stuff.
January 17, 2018
A dangerous threat to the assumptions of contemporary feminist and queer anthropologies but also offers constructive foundations for the revision and reformation of gender and sexual identities.
October 14, 2023
A behemoth in stature and complexity of thought. Central to his argument is the concept that sexual desire is not the desire for sex, but the desire for another person. Entirely secular and exclusively philosophical, the author weaves in quotations from Shakespeare to Sartre into his argumentation. Scruton argues, in my view successfully, that sexual desire is a preeminently human phenomenon contra Frued. This book would have benefitted from an editor but all in all the author's breadth of knowledge in this field wins the day, even if it could have been 75 pages shorter.
July 28, 2016
Na pewno nie można odmówić tej książce pieczołowicie dokonanych analiz i niezwykle solidnego badania tego, czym jest i jak powinno być rozumiane pożądanie oraz seksualność. Autor stara się połączyć ze sobą dwa podejścia do filozofii: z jednej strony fenomenologiczne, z drugiej bardziej ścisłe i analityczne. Nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że znajduje się w tej książce wyjątkowo mała ilość zagadnień, z którymi bym się zgodził; a w szczególności z twierdzeniem, że istnieje coś takiego jak moralność/etyka seksualna i to, że powinniśmy przestrzegać jej zaleceń (bliżej nieokreślonych w tej książce). Zastosowanie fenomenologicznego sposobu rozważania oraz tak zwanej kategorii lebenswelt powoduje pewien problem, który już w wcześniej zauważył Igor Primoratz w „Etyce seksualnej”. Czy mówimy tutaj o „najlepszym jakościowo seksie” czy o „moralnie dopuszczalnym seksie”? Od stwierdzenia, że uprawiając seks z tą samą płcią nie ma, jak twierdzi autor, tajemnicy (cokolwiek to znaczy), daleko jeszcze do stwierdzenia, że ten czyn jest czymś złym z punktu widzenia etyki. Podobnie jest z jakimkolwiek aktem, w którym pożądanie jest czysto, tylko i wyłącznie cielesne. Zresztą porównując te dwie książki (Primoratza i Scrutona), widać w jak skomplikowany i czasem za bardzo zawiły sposób pisze Scruton, co niestety jest skutkiem użycia pewnych fenomenologicznych analiz i powoływania się na innych fenomenologów, typu Sartre’a. Jest to bardzo trudna książka dla kogoś, kto nie interesuje się filozofią analityczną oraz filozofią kontynentalną, jest ona skierowana raczej do specjalistów. Dość jaskrawym tego przykładem jest to, że autor buduje cały system fenomenologicznego postrzegania świata, rozważając przy tym ogromną ilość innych skomplikowanych wątków filozoficznych. W trakcie lektury niektórych rozdziałów można się zastanowić, czy zagadnienie pożądania było w ogóle motywem napisania tej książki. Jednak nadal stoję na stanowisku, że warto ją przeczytać. Jest to jedna z najważniejszych silnie konserwatywnych analiz na temat seksualności.
Certainly we cannot deny that this book constitutes meticulous analysis and remarkably substantial research on what is and how should we understand the topic of sexual desire and our sexuality. The author tries to combine two specific philosophical approaches: phenomenological and the one that is more precise and analytic. However it does not change the fact that I disagree with most of the theses that I can find in this book, especially with the one that there is something called sexual morality or ethics and that we should follow its obligations (obligations that are not specified in this book). Using phenomenological manner of consideration and the so called lebenswelt category, creates a problem that was pointed out by Igor Primoratz in his “Ethics and Sex”. Do we have in mind “the best quality of sex” or “the morally permitted sex”? From the fact that when I have sex with someone of the same sex, there is no mystery in it (whatever that means), we cannot jump to the conclusion that this is immoral. The same goes for a situation when our desire is for example purely physical. In any case, if we compare these two books we see how complicated and intricate is Scruton’s language which unfortunately is caused by the usage of some phenomenological analysis and references to other phenomenologists as for example Sartre. This is a very difficult book to read for someone who is not interested in analytical and/or continental philosophy, it is addressed rather to specialists. A striking example is that the author creates the whole system of phenomenological view of the world considering at the same time a huge amount of different complex philosophical topics. During the reading of some subsections we can wonder if the question of sexual desire was even the main motive for writing this book. Nevertheless I’m still standing on the position that this book is really worth to read as one of the most important strongly conservative analysis of our sexuality.
Certainly we cannot deny that this book constitutes meticulous analysis and remarkably substantial research on what is and how should we understand the topic of sexual desire and our sexuality. The author tries to combine two specific philosophical approaches: phenomenological and the one that is more precise and analytic. However it does not change the fact that I disagree with most of the theses that I can find in this book, especially with the one that there is something called sexual morality or ethics and that we should follow its obligations (obligations that are not specified in this book). Using phenomenological manner of consideration and the so called lebenswelt category, creates a problem that was pointed out by Igor Primoratz in his “Ethics and Sex”. Do we have in mind “the best quality of sex” or “the morally permitted sex”? From the fact that when I have sex with someone of the same sex, there is no mystery in it (whatever that means), we cannot jump to the conclusion that this is immoral. The same goes for a situation when our desire is for example purely physical. In any case, if we compare these two books we see how complicated and intricate is Scruton’s language which unfortunately is caused by the usage of some phenomenological analysis and references to other phenomenologists as for example Sartre. This is a very difficult book to read for someone who is not interested in analytical and/or continental philosophy, it is addressed rather to specialists. A striking example is that the author creates the whole system of phenomenological view of the world considering at the same time a huge amount of different complex philosophical topics. During the reading of some subsections we can wonder if the question of sexual desire was even the main motive for writing this book. Nevertheless I’m still standing on the position that this book is really worth to read as one of the most important strongly conservative analysis of our sexuality.
February 1, 2025
Recenzie a ediției Humanitas din 2019:
Încă din primele pagini, din Prefață, autorul își prezintă aversiunea față de sexologie și de tot ce ține de metoda științifică. E unul dintre acei filosofi, ultra-conservatori. La analogia lui Freud despre satisfacerea dorinței sexuale și potolirea foamei, Roger Scruton definește acest limbaj ca exprimând „ură față de actul sexual și față de tot ceea ce ține de el”. Ură … ură! 😅 Cam aici este nivelul acestei scrieri foarte stufoase. Mie mi-a stabilit așteptările jos încă de la primele idei, așa că nu am fost dezamăgit, ba chiar am râs de multe ori citind această carte. Dar chiar și așa, nu am învățat multe lucruri din ea, a fost o lectură destul de stearpă 😁. Însă a fost instructivă în a înțelege modul de gândire care a îndrumat cetățenii Regatului Unit la înfăptuirea notoriului Brexit.
„... este mijlocul cel mai eficient de a lăsa sexul în afara discuției - dat fiind că el trebuie exclus din orice discurs despre dorință.” - pg. 10. 🤪😳🤯 Să nu uităm, titlul cărții este “Dorința sexuală”, probabil a fost ales de autor doar pentru click-bait.
„Unul dintre scopurile majore ale acestei lucrări este combaterea teoriei platonice.” - pg. 12.
„Nici un cuvânt nu pare să surprindă adevărul chestiunii; într-adevăr, în cele din urmă, cuvintele eșuează. Doar experiența pare capabilă să conțină un răspuns.” - pg. 404, „Anexa 1”. Dăăă, știm bine, de asta folosim EEG. Un prim gest onorabil al autorului, comportament rarisim la el.
„Încercarea de a surprinde esența unei stări mentale, concentrându-ne pe manifestarea ei la persoana întâi, este sortită eșecului. Mai mult, iluzia persoanei întâi - iluzia potrivit căreia ceea ce sunt pentru mine însumi nu pot fi și pentru tine - este lipsită de fundament.” - pg. 419. Ce platitudine măreață! Orice iluzie este lipsită de fundament, nu doar cea a „persoanei întâi” a lui Roger Scruton.
Iluzie = (figurat) situație în care o aparență sau o ficțiune este considerată drept realitate; speranță neîntemeiată, dorință neîndeplinită; închipuire fără o bază reală, amăgire; himeră. - sursa DEX ‘09.
„Problema dorinței sexuale devine în cele din urmă o problemă politică, iar concluziile morale întrucâtva conservatoare pe care le voi apăra trebuie să fie văzute ca o parte a conservatorismului politic mai larg pe care îl implică deja și căruia îi furnizează într-adevăr una dintre justificările cele mai profunde - o justificare ce provine din calitatea lăuntrică a celei mai private experiențe umane.” - pg. 26.
„Sau să presupunem că un bărbat și-ar putea atașa, înlătura și schimba “instrumentul”. El începe să își piardă o parte din interesul său personal intrinsec și ajunge să semene, într-adevăr, cu acele vibratoare sinistre care sunt expuse în sex shopuri și care își datorează atracția tocmai faptului că nu sunt atașate de nici un corp omenesc și de nici o voință omenească (și care, prin urmare, nu prezintă nici o atracție sexuală pentru persoana cu înclinații normale).” - pg. 40.
„Prin urmare, pot exista reprezentări obscene ale unor acte sexuale pe de-a-ntregul inocente.” - pg. 45.
„Excitarea sexuală poate apărea doar între persoane și este un artefact al condiției lor sociale.” - pg. 45. Ăsta da 💩🪑 elitist, cu firișoare de sânge albastru.
„Întrebările despre natura proceselor mentale trebuie să își afle răspuns nu prin intermediul cercetării științifice, ci prin intermediul analizei filozofice.” - pg. 45-46. Așa arată o platitudine. Cercetarea științifică nu va căuta niciodată răspunsuri în “mental”, ci în “mintal”.
Mental = care se referă la mentalitate, privitor la mentalitate. DEX '09
Mentalitate = fel particular de a-și reprezenta lumea al unui individ sau al unei colectivități. DEX '09
Mintal = care aparține minții, privitor la minte; care se produce, se petrece în minte. DEX '09
Minte = facultatea de a gândi, de a judeca, de a înțelege; rațiune, intelect. DEX '09
„Desigur, investigația științifică a fenomenelor mentale este de asemenea posibilă.” - pg. 46. Nu, nu este posibilă.
„Tocmai cu acest argumente, Michel Foucault, în cartea sa recentă, Istoria sexualității, încerca să ne convingă că nu există un “adevăr” atemporal al experienței sexuale și că moralitatea sexuală este produsul condițiilor culturale care au fost mâncate de viermele timpului. Eu nu sunt convins de aceste afirmații și sper să ofer argumente pentru a le respinge.” - pg. 47. Spoiler alert - nu a reușit. Asta e viața, uneori ne ies lucrurile, alteori o dăm în bară.
„Animalele nu sunt niciodată excitate din punct de vedere sexual; ele nu resimt dorința sexuală și nici nu au parte de împlinire sexuală." - pg. 48.
„Dacă vrem să înțelegem perspectiva la persoana întâi, atunci trebuie să o vedem din punctul de vedere al persoanei a treia.” - pg. 58. 🙈 “Lasă-mă să-ți spun eu cum te simți tu!”, cam asta vrea să ne spună Roger Scruton. “Ești deprimat?! Nu mai fii deprimat, ce, ești prost?!” 😂 Cred că Roger Scruton era rudă apropiată cu Andrew Tate, gândesc atât de similar.
„Înseamnă pur și simplu să arătăm, ceea ce este evident adevărat, că “noutatea” care este căutată nu este cea a “senzațiilor noi”, a “pozițiilor noi”, a “contorsionărilor noi” și așa mai departe - ci aceea a oamenilor noi. Cu alte cuvinte, ceea ce se caută este o reînnoire a obiectivului dorinței, cu o altă persoană.” - pg. 107. El a avut 2 soții, iar exprimarea aceasta doar ne confirmă cum gândea micul Roger. Era un hedonist conservator libertarian desăvârșit.
„Închipuiți-vă acum că același bărbat execută aceleași mișcări (masturbare), însă cu privirea fixată asupra femeii care se dezbracă la fereastra învecinată. În acest caz există un obiect fantezist al dorinței. […] Desigur, nici un om cu o brumă de judecată nu și-ar putea atinge scopul în acest mod; cel mai probabil, motivul său nu este dorința, ci “plăcerea curioasă”, iar femeia intră în scenă ca simplu instrument al fanteziei care îl ajută să își atingă obiectivul. Într-adevăr, asemenea comportamente sexuale exhibiționiste, egoiste tind să îl considere pe celălalt nu un obiect, ci că instrument al descărcării sexuale, astfel încât celălalt nu poate fi obiectul dorinței.” - pg. 109. “Și la început a fost cuvântul” lui Roger Scruton, care însă ne-a spus doar că nu înțelege sensul cuvintelor pe care le utilizează.
Obiect = (filosofie) ceea ce există în afara eului, a omului ca ființă activă și conștientă, independent de el și este modificat prin activitatea lui; conținutul asupra căruia se îndreaptă cunoașterea; ceea ce este cunoscut. DEX '09
Instrument = (figurat) persoană, forță, lucru, fapt de care se servește cineva pentru atingerea unui scop. DEX '09
„Din punct de vedere obiectiv, trebuie să recunoaștem că dorința sexuală și iubirea erotică sunt, ambele, manifestări ale altor lucruri - ale nevoilor animalice și obiceiurilor emoționale.” - pg. 125.
„Noi suntem, după cum convingător a argumentat Kant, victimele iluziilor transcendentale.” - pg. 138. Aici sunt prezente două momente rarisime de onestitate din partea sa, chiar dacă nu sunt idei personale, cel puțin a avut decența de a le accepta.
„În mod clar, nu poate exista o asemenea dorință (în cadrul prostituției); de aici și vechea zicală spaniolă, potrivit căreia trupul unei femei nu este o marfă.” - pg. 180. Contracție în termeni din partea lui Roger, scurtcircuit logic. Dacă actul este tranzacțional, deci nu implică dorință, automat corpul este marfă. Probabil că a greșit numărul de negări pe care dorea să le realizeze. Sau poate că Scruton a vrut să ne transmită că persoanele care practică prostituția, fiind "mărfuri" prin intermediul serviciilor prestate, nu mai sunt oameni, iar particular nu mai sunt femei. Și nu m-ar surprinde deloc să fi avut o gândire de acest fel. Pare genul care ar fi pus etichete de "sub-om" altora diferiți de el.
„ … de aici și instituția bordelului, în care plătind unei terțe părți, clientul se eliberează de conștiința a ceea ce îi face femeii pe care o alege.” - pg. 180. 😄 Pentru Roger, “instituția bordelului” avea tente morale, filosofice, și nu practice, de genul protecției pentru ambele părți implicate în acea tranzacție. Ce romantic a fost acest om, foarte poetic, aproape patetic! 😁
„Referirea la Albertine aduce la lumină cea mai importantă sursă a imposturii lui Proust. Și aceasta deoarece experiența pe care tocmai a descris-o nu este cea a geloziei pricinuită de interesul unei femei față de altă femeie, ci mai curând gelozia pricinuită de interesul unui bărbat față de alt bărbat. Acesta este un subiect asupra căruia voi reveni în capitolul 10.” - pg. 189. Clasic Roger Scruton! 😃 Însă omul pare că știe ce zice cu privire la sentimentele homoerotice.
„Ceea ce am descris, veți spune, nu este realitatea conduitei umane, ci doar, ca să spunem așa, un nimb de gânduri și iluzii de care este înconjurată și care are probabil rolul de a ascunde de cei needucați faptele deconcertante ale “adevăratei naturi umane”. A crede că descrierile mele reprezintă natura dorinței sexuale înseamnă a confunda aparența cu realitatea și iluzia practică cu adevărul teoretic.” - pg. 206. 😁 “Adevărul este la mine și doar la mine” ar fi vrut să spună aici Roger, însă s-a abținut cu mult tact. Britanic dom’le, un adevărat gentleman!
„Necrofilia este forma absolută de perversiune, în care existența celuilalt este considerată o amenințare la adresa demersului sexual.” - pg. 330. Perfect de acord cu expresia de absolutizare din perspectivă filozofică, dar nu și din perspectivă morală. Cel puțin în necrofilie individul care comite acest act nu face nici un rău unei alte ființe/persoane, în afară de sine. Dimpotrivă, în pedofilie și zoofilie, răul comis asupra altora este enorm. Deci, dacă analizăm corect, moralmente pedofilia și zoofilia sunt perversiuni “mai absolute” decât necrofilia.
„Masturbarea există în două forme: una în care ușurează o perioadă de izolare sexuală și este călăuzită de o fantezie a copulării; cealaltă, în care masturbarea înlocuiește contactul uman și, probabil, îl face imposibil, consolidând teroarea umană și simplificând procesul gratificării sexuale. Dintr-o perspectivă plauzibilă, doar a doua dintre acestea ar putea fi descrisă în mod rezonabil ca fiind perversă, căci doar în ea apare o deviere a impulsului sexual de la uniunea interpersonală - o deviere care are loc însă sub presiunea fanteziilor legate de actul sexual.” - pg. 354. Aici Roger Scruton s-a simțit cu musca pe căciulă, se cam scuza pentru faptul că se mai masturba cu soția prin casă. Însă el avea voie, doar cei care mai și fut au voie să se masturbeze. Ceilalți nu, că devin perverși, mama lor! 🤪 După Roger Scruton, dacă nu ai soț/soție, nu ai dreptul la gratificare sexuală. Păi, ce, ne jucăm așa cu ea prin țăr’nă?! (mi-a amintit de bucata de stand-up comedy a lui Costel Bojog despre masturbare în pat cu soția în timp ce ea doarme 😅).
„Așadar, este cu totul firesc să ne percepem propriul nostru trup ca pe un “teritoriu interzis”, asemenea trupului celor din familia noastră. (Aceasta este ideea din spatele educației tradiționale a copiilor în spiritul “igienei morale” și oricât de ridicolă ne-ar putea părea acum literatura dedicată acestei educații, cu poveștile sale înfiorătoare despre moartea prematură și slăbirea excesivă a trupului, nu ar trebui să minimalizăm intuiția morală pe care a fost întemeiată.)” - pg. 356. 😵 Cel puțin am aflat ce gândea Roger Scruton despre educația sexuală. Îi plăcea tipul de educație care te învață că masturbarea duce la orbire și la creșterea părului în palmă. Intelectual rasat!
„Această carte se încheie însă cu apărarea căsătoriei.” - pg. 399. Când citim acest capitol al 12-lea, trebuie să avem în minte următorul aspect: Roger Scruton a avut mai multe soții, iar ultima lui soție a fost mai tânără decât el cu 28 de ani. 28 de fucking ani! 😛
Amin! 🪦
Alte citatele pline de certitudini ale autorului le-am păstrat doar pentru addendum-ul meu personal. Însă eu zic că am extras destule și pentru această recenzie.
Se găsesc asemenea fraze total absurde, atât de vădit greșite, pe aproape fiecare pagină din cartea de față, care însă solicită oarecum gândirea critică. Este exact ca la încercarea de a contracara teoriile conspirației, suscită la un anumit tip de gândire. Plus, este util să putem recunoaște asemenea indivizi în societate pentru a ne feri de ei, nicidecum pentru a le face vreun rău. Doar că nu se poate discuta rațional cu oamenii care au doar convingeri.
„Eroul nostru” a decedat pe 12.01.2020, neputând să-și sărbătorească reușita cu Nigel Farage și Douglas Murray, asta deoarece Brexit-ul s-a încheiat pe 31.01.2020.
În fine, nu am citit nimic în prealabil despre autor sau carte, nu m-am uitat pe recenzii sau note pe Goodreads, am cumpărat-o de Black Friday deoarece era ieftină, aproximativ 10 lei, și am fost atras de copertă și titlu, dar concluzia este că nu a meritat, a fost o achiziție nepotrivită. Data viitoare mă voi documenta mai bine.
Am avut impresia de multe ori că nu citesc o carte filozofică, ci una scrisă de un teolog creștin-ortodox, care este și pasionat de logică.
Plus, omul nostru a făcut un fel de sport din a contrazice cei mai mari filosofi ai tuturor timpurilor, așa, de amuzament.
Este o carte obositoare, plină de poliloghii, cuvinte inventate și împrumutate de la alți autori (e.g: asertabilitate, indexicalitate, perspectivă encritică), dar și multe ghilimele, enorm de multe ghilimele. Îl și vizionam pe Roger Scruton în timp ce vorbea făcând mereu acest semn✌🏻 cu degetele ușor îndoite, pregătit din naștere pentru “„”«» de toate modelele. Am citit cu mare atenție și în vreo 30 de zile această carte, iar concluzia este că acest domn, cât timp a trăit pe aceste meleaguri, putea să nu comunice mai nimic scriind tratate întregi. Am simțit mereu că schimbă premisele din carte ca la alba-neagra, mi-a redat imaginea acelui copil răsfățat care vrea să acapareze toate jucăriile. N-am nici o problemă, simte-te bine, Roger Scruton, distrează-te! 😅
Psihologic, oamenii care vor mereu să aibă dreptate sunt moderat interesanți, pentru că sunt repetitivi, nu poți învăța prea multe lucruri de la ei, și nu poți garanta că ce ai învățat de la ei este real sau măcar adevărat. Aceștia pot minți sau greși frecvent.
Însă vreau să atenționez (!!!) pe orice dorește să parcurgă această carte că este o lectură greoaie, complicată, care necesită mult efort intelectual și un spirit critic cultivat. În loc să citiți într-un stil pedant această carte, mai bine nu o faceți.
Pe de altă parte, nu vreau să demonizez pe de-a întregul această carte, conține și multe adevăruri de bun-simț, concepte preluate de la autori consacrați. Ghinionul a fost că le știam dinainte, așa că nu m-au surprins. Am găsit împletite idei foarte bune, însă neoriginale, cu altele dezastruoase, care erau destul de originale pentru Scruton. Omul clar putea să spună inepții uriașe fără să clipească, pe model Trump. Când un om minte constant, nimeni nu va mai fi surprins că minte, va fi doar un alt banal mitoman cu succes la un anumit public care vrea să fie mințit. Este simplu.
În principal, este o colecție de remarci bune și altele mai puțin reușite. Neplăcut este că are trimiterile astea obositoare la alte capitole sau anexe, de parcă este o carte de drept cu referințele lor la articolul cutărică din legea cutărică, se discută același subiect în o grămadă de capitole. Probabil că este o tehnică și asta, pentru a crea confuzie. Sunt împrăștiate subiectele încât pentru a putea deduce anumite concluzii personale, nicidecum pentru a înțelege pe deplin ce a “vrut să spună autorul” este nevoie de un efort major.
O eroare din mintea lui Scruton a fost că el a utilizat uneori termenii "a afirma" și "a argumenta" într-un raport de sinonimie. Pentru mine aceste noțiuni NU sunt interșanjabile!
Roger a fost în mare parte un sofist de nota 10 („premisa că privilegiul persoanei întâi nu este un fenomen privat, ci public” - pg. 411), însă am întâlnit și mai răi decât el.
3,0/5 ⭐
Încă din primele pagini, din Prefață, autorul își prezintă aversiunea față de sexologie și de tot ce ține de metoda științifică. E unul dintre acei filosofi, ultra-conservatori. La analogia lui Freud despre satisfacerea dorinței sexuale și potolirea foamei, Roger Scruton definește acest limbaj ca exprimând „ură față de actul sexual și față de tot ceea ce ține de el”. Ură … ură! 😅 Cam aici este nivelul acestei scrieri foarte stufoase. Mie mi-a stabilit așteptările jos încă de la primele idei, așa că nu am fost dezamăgit, ba chiar am râs de multe ori citind această carte. Dar chiar și așa, nu am învățat multe lucruri din ea, a fost o lectură destul de stearpă 😁. Însă a fost instructivă în a înțelege modul de gândire care a îndrumat cetățenii Regatului Unit la înfăptuirea notoriului Brexit.
„... este mijlocul cel mai eficient de a lăsa sexul în afara discuției - dat fiind că el trebuie exclus din orice discurs despre dorință.” - pg. 10. 🤪😳🤯 Să nu uităm, titlul cărții este “Dorința sexuală”, probabil a fost ales de autor doar pentru click-bait.
„Unul dintre scopurile majore ale acestei lucrări este combaterea teoriei platonice.” - pg. 12.
„Nici un cuvânt nu pare să surprindă adevărul chestiunii; într-adevăr, în cele din urmă, cuvintele eșuează. Doar experiența pare capabilă să conțină un răspuns.” - pg. 404, „Anexa 1”. Dăăă, știm bine, de asta folosim EEG. Un prim gest onorabil al autorului, comportament rarisim la el.
„Încercarea de a surprinde esența unei stări mentale, concentrându-ne pe manifestarea ei la persoana întâi, este sortită eșecului. Mai mult, iluzia persoanei întâi - iluzia potrivit căreia ceea ce sunt pentru mine însumi nu pot fi și pentru tine - este lipsită de fundament.” - pg. 419. Ce platitudine măreață! Orice iluzie este lipsită de fundament, nu doar cea a „persoanei întâi” a lui Roger Scruton.
Iluzie = (figurat) situație în care o aparență sau o ficțiune este considerată drept realitate; speranță neîntemeiată, dorință neîndeplinită; închipuire fără o bază reală, amăgire; himeră. - sursa DEX ‘09.
„Problema dorinței sexuale devine în cele din urmă o problemă politică, iar concluziile morale întrucâtva conservatoare pe care le voi apăra trebuie să fie văzute ca o parte a conservatorismului politic mai larg pe care îl implică deja și căruia îi furnizează într-adevăr una dintre justificările cele mai profunde - o justificare ce provine din calitatea lăuntrică a celei mai private experiențe umane.” - pg. 26.
„Sau să presupunem că un bărbat și-ar putea atașa, înlătura și schimba “instrumentul”. El începe să își piardă o parte din interesul său personal intrinsec și ajunge să semene, într-adevăr, cu acele vibratoare sinistre care sunt expuse în sex shopuri și care își datorează atracția tocmai faptului că nu sunt atașate de nici un corp omenesc și de nici o voință omenească (și care, prin urmare, nu prezintă nici o atracție sexuală pentru persoana cu înclinații normale).” - pg. 40.
„Prin urmare, pot exista reprezentări obscene ale unor acte sexuale pe de-a-ntregul inocente.” - pg. 45.
„Excitarea sexuală poate apărea doar între persoane și este un artefact al condiției lor sociale.” - pg. 45. Ăsta da 💩🪑 elitist, cu firișoare de sânge albastru.
„Întrebările despre natura proceselor mentale trebuie să își afle răspuns nu prin intermediul cercetării științifice, ci prin intermediul analizei filozofice.” - pg. 45-46. Așa arată o platitudine. Cercetarea științifică nu va căuta niciodată răspunsuri în “mental”, ci în “mintal”.
Mental = care se referă la mentalitate, privitor la mentalitate. DEX '09
Mentalitate = fel particular de a-și reprezenta lumea al unui individ sau al unei colectivități. DEX '09
Mintal = care aparține minții, privitor la minte; care se produce, se petrece în minte. DEX '09
Minte = facultatea de a gândi, de a judeca, de a înțelege; rațiune, intelect. DEX '09
„Desigur, investigația științifică a fenomenelor mentale este de asemenea posibilă.” - pg. 46. Nu, nu este posibilă.
„Tocmai cu acest argumente, Michel Foucault, în cartea sa recentă, Istoria sexualității, încerca să ne convingă că nu există un “adevăr” atemporal al experienței sexuale și că moralitatea sexuală este produsul condițiilor culturale care au fost mâncate de viermele timpului. Eu nu sunt convins de aceste afirmații și sper să ofer argumente pentru a le respinge.” - pg. 47. Spoiler alert - nu a reușit. Asta e viața, uneori ne ies lucrurile, alteori o dăm în bară.
„Animalele nu sunt niciodată excitate din punct de vedere sexual; ele nu resimt dorința sexuală și nici nu au parte de împlinire sexuală." - pg. 48.
„Dacă vrem să înțelegem perspectiva la persoana întâi, atunci trebuie să o vedem din punctul de vedere al persoanei a treia.” - pg. 58. 🙈 “Lasă-mă să-ți spun eu cum te simți tu!”, cam asta vrea să ne spună Roger Scruton. “Ești deprimat?! Nu mai fii deprimat, ce, ești prost?!” 😂 Cred că Roger Scruton era rudă apropiată cu Andrew Tate, gândesc atât de similar.
„Înseamnă pur și simplu să arătăm, ceea ce este evident adevărat, că “noutatea” care este căutată nu este cea a “senzațiilor noi”, a “pozițiilor noi”, a “contorsionărilor noi” și așa mai departe - ci aceea a oamenilor noi. Cu alte cuvinte, ceea ce se caută este o reînnoire a obiectivului dorinței, cu o altă persoană.” - pg. 107. El a avut 2 soții, iar exprimarea aceasta doar ne confirmă cum gândea micul Roger. Era un hedonist conservator libertarian desăvârșit.
„Închipuiți-vă acum că același bărbat execută aceleași mișcări (masturbare), însă cu privirea fixată asupra femeii care se dezbracă la fereastra învecinată. În acest caz există un obiect fantezist al dorinței. […] Desigur, nici un om cu o brumă de judecată nu și-ar putea atinge scopul în acest mod; cel mai probabil, motivul său nu este dorința, ci “plăcerea curioasă”, iar femeia intră în scenă ca simplu instrument al fanteziei care îl ajută să își atingă obiectivul. Într-adevăr, asemenea comportamente sexuale exhibiționiste, egoiste tind să îl considere pe celălalt nu un obiect, ci că instrument al descărcării sexuale, astfel încât celălalt nu poate fi obiectul dorinței.” - pg. 109. “Și la început a fost cuvântul” lui Roger Scruton, care însă ne-a spus doar că nu înțelege sensul cuvintelor pe care le utilizează.
Obiect = (filosofie) ceea ce există în afara eului, a omului ca ființă activă și conștientă, independent de el și este modificat prin activitatea lui; conținutul asupra căruia se îndreaptă cunoașterea; ceea ce este cunoscut. DEX '09
Instrument = (figurat) persoană, forță, lucru, fapt de care se servește cineva pentru atingerea unui scop. DEX '09
„Din punct de vedere obiectiv, trebuie să recunoaștem că dorința sexuală și iubirea erotică sunt, ambele, manifestări ale altor lucruri - ale nevoilor animalice și obiceiurilor emoționale.” - pg. 125.
„Noi suntem, după cum convingător a argumentat Kant, victimele iluziilor transcendentale.” - pg. 138. Aici sunt prezente două momente rarisime de onestitate din partea sa, chiar dacă nu sunt idei personale, cel puțin a avut decența de a le accepta.
„În mod clar, nu poate exista o asemenea dorință (în cadrul prostituției); de aici și vechea zicală spaniolă, potrivit căreia trupul unei femei nu este o marfă.” - pg. 180. Contracție în termeni din partea lui Roger, scurtcircuit logic. Dacă actul este tranzacțional, deci nu implică dorință, automat corpul este marfă. Probabil că a greșit numărul de negări pe care dorea să le realizeze. Sau poate că Scruton a vrut să ne transmită că persoanele care practică prostituția, fiind "mărfuri" prin intermediul serviciilor prestate, nu mai sunt oameni, iar particular nu mai sunt femei. Și nu m-ar surprinde deloc să fi avut o gândire de acest fel. Pare genul care ar fi pus etichete de "sub-om" altora diferiți de el.
„ … de aici și instituția bordelului, în care plătind unei terțe părți, clientul se eliberează de conștiința a ceea ce îi face femeii pe care o alege.” - pg. 180. 😄 Pentru Roger, “instituția bordelului” avea tente morale, filosofice, și nu practice, de genul protecției pentru ambele părți implicate în acea tranzacție. Ce romantic a fost acest om, foarte poetic, aproape patetic! 😁
„Referirea la Albertine aduce la lumină cea mai importantă sursă a imposturii lui Proust. Și aceasta deoarece experiența pe care tocmai a descris-o nu este cea a geloziei pricinuită de interesul unei femei față de altă femeie, ci mai curând gelozia pricinuită de interesul unui bărbat față de alt bărbat. Acesta este un subiect asupra căruia voi reveni în capitolul 10.” - pg. 189. Clasic Roger Scruton! 😃 Însă omul pare că știe ce zice cu privire la sentimentele homoerotice.
„Ceea ce am descris, veți spune, nu este realitatea conduitei umane, ci doar, ca să spunem așa, un nimb de gânduri și iluzii de care este înconjurată și care are probabil rolul de a ascunde de cei needucați faptele deconcertante ale “adevăratei naturi umane”. A crede că descrierile mele reprezintă natura dorinței sexuale înseamnă a confunda aparența cu realitatea și iluzia practică cu adevărul teoretic.” - pg. 206. 😁 “Adevărul este la mine și doar la mine” ar fi vrut să spună aici Roger, însă s-a abținut cu mult tact. Britanic dom’le, un adevărat gentleman!
„Necrofilia este forma absolută de perversiune, în care existența celuilalt este considerată o amenințare la adresa demersului sexual.” - pg. 330. Perfect de acord cu expresia de absolutizare din perspectivă filozofică, dar nu și din perspectivă morală. Cel puțin în necrofilie individul care comite acest act nu face nici un rău unei alte ființe/persoane, în afară de sine. Dimpotrivă, în pedofilie și zoofilie, răul comis asupra altora este enorm. Deci, dacă analizăm corect, moralmente pedofilia și zoofilia sunt perversiuni “mai absolute” decât necrofilia.
„Masturbarea există în două forme: una în care ușurează o perioadă de izolare sexuală și este călăuzită de o fantezie a copulării; cealaltă, în care masturbarea înlocuiește contactul uman și, probabil, îl face imposibil, consolidând teroarea umană și simplificând procesul gratificării sexuale. Dintr-o perspectivă plauzibilă, doar a doua dintre acestea ar putea fi descrisă în mod rezonabil ca fiind perversă, căci doar în ea apare o deviere a impulsului sexual de la uniunea interpersonală - o deviere care are loc însă sub presiunea fanteziilor legate de actul sexual.” - pg. 354. Aici Roger Scruton s-a simțit cu musca pe căciulă, se cam scuza pentru faptul că se mai masturba cu soția prin casă. Însă el avea voie, doar cei care mai și fut au voie să se masturbeze. Ceilalți nu, că devin perverși, mama lor! 🤪 După Roger Scruton, dacă nu ai soț/soție, nu ai dreptul la gratificare sexuală. Păi, ce, ne jucăm așa cu ea prin țăr’nă?! (mi-a amintit de bucata de stand-up comedy a lui Costel Bojog despre masturbare în pat cu soția în timp ce ea doarme 😅).
„Așadar, este cu totul firesc să ne percepem propriul nostru trup ca pe un “teritoriu interzis”, asemenea trupului celor din familia noastră. (Aceasta este ideea din spatele educației tradiționale a copiilor în spiritul “igienei morale” și oricât de ridicolă ne-ar putea părea acum literatura dedicată acestei educații, cu poveștile sale înfiorătoare despre moartea prematură și slăbirea excesivă a trupului, nu ar trebui să minimalizăm intuiția morală pe care a fost întemeiată.)” - pg. 356. 😵 Cel puțin am aflat ce gândea Roger Scruton despre educația sexuală. Îi plăcea tipul de educație care te învață că masturbarea duce la orbire și la creșterea părului în palmă. Intelectual rasat!
„Această carte se încheie însă cu apărarea căsătoriei.” - pg. 399. Când citim acest capitol al 12-lea, trebuie să avem în minte următorul aspect: Roger Scruton a avut mai multe soții, iar ultima lui soție a fost mai tânără decât el cu 28 de ani. 28 de fucking ani! 😛
Amin! 🪦
Alte citatele pline de certitudini ale autorului le-am păstrat doar pentru addendum-ul meu personal. Însă eu zic că am extras destule și pentru această recenzie.
Se găsesc asemenea fraze total absurde, atât de vădit greșite, pe aproape fiecare pagină din cartea de față, care însă solicită oarecum gândirea critică. Este exact ca la încercarea de a contracara teoriile conspirației, suscită la un anumit tip de gândire. Plus, este util să putem recunoaște asemenea indivizi în societate pentru a ne feri de ei, nicidecum pentru a le face vreun rău. Doar că nu se poate discuta rațional cu oamenii care au doar convingeri.
„Eroul nostru” a decedat pe 12.01.2020, neputând să-și sărbătorească reușita cu Nigel Farage și Douglas Murray, asta deoarece Brexit-ul s-a încheiat pe 31.01.2020.
În fine, nu am citit nimic în prealabil despre autor sau carte, nu m-am uitat pe recenzii sau note pe Goodreads, am cumpărat-o de Black Friday deoarece era ieftină, aproximativ 10 lei, și am fost atras de copertă și titlu, dar concluzia este că nu a meritat, a fost o achiziție nepotrivită. Data viitoare mă voi documenta mai bine.
Am avut impresia de multe ori că nu citesc o carte filozofică, ci una scrisă de un teolog creștin-ortodox, care este și pasionat de logică.
Plus, omul nostru a făcut un fel de sport din a contrazice cei mai mari filosofi ai tuturor timpurilor, așa, de amuzament.
Este o carte obositoare, plină de poliloghii, cuvinte inventate și împrumutate de la alți autori (e.g: asertabilitate, indexicalitate, perspectivă encritică), dar și multe ghilimele, enorm de multe ghilimele. Îl și vizionam pe Roger Scruton în timp ce vorbea făcând mereu acest semn✌🏻 cu degetele ușor îndoite, pregătit din naștere pentru “„”«» de toate modelele. Am citit cu mare atenție și în vreo 30 de zile această carte, iar concluzia este că acest domn, cât timp a trăit pe aceste meleaguri, putea să nu comunice mai nimic scriind tratate întregi. Am simțit mereu că schimbă premisele din carte ca la alba-neagra, mi-a redat imaginea acelui copil răsfățat care vrea să acapareze toate jucăriile. N-am nici o problemă, simte-te bine, Roger Scruton, distrează-te! 😅
Psihologic, oamenii care vor mereu să aibă dreptate sunt moderat interesanți, pentru că sunt repetitivi, nu poți învăța prea multe lucruri de la ei, și nu poți garanta că ce ai învățat de la ei este real sau măcar adevărat. Aceștia pot minți sau greși frecvent.
Însă vreau să atenționez (!!!) pe orice dorește să parcurgă această carte că este o lectură greoaie, complicată, care necesită mult efort intelectual și un spirit critic cultivat. În loc să citiți într-un stil pedant această carte, mai bine nu o faceți.
Pe de altă parte, nu vreau să demonizez pe de-a întregul această carte, conține și multe adevăruri de bun-simț, concepte preluate de la autori consacrați. Ghinionul a fost că le știam dinainte, așa că nu m-au surprins. Am găsit împletite idei foarte bune, însă neoriginale, cu altele dezastruoase, care erau destul de originale pentru Scruton. Omul clar putea să spună inepții uriașe fără să clipească, pe model Trump. Când un om minte constant, nimeni nu va mai fi surprins că minte, va fi doar un alt banal mitoman cu succes la un anumit public care vrea să fie mințit. Este simplu.
În principal, este o colecție de remarci bune și altele mai puțin reușite. Neplăcut este că are trimiterile astea obositoare la alte capitole sau anexe, de parcă este o carte de drept cu referințele lor la articolul cutărică din legea cutărică, se discută același subiect în o grămadă de capitole. Probabil că este o tehnică și asta, pentru a crea confuzie. Sunt împrăștiate subiectele încât pentru a putea deduce anumite concluzii personale, nicidecum pentru a înțelege pe deplin ce a “vrut să spună autorul” este nevoie de un efort major.
O eroare din mintea lui Scruton a fost că el a utilizat uneori termenii "a afirma" și "a argumenta" într-un raport de sinonimie. Pentru mine aceste noțiuni NU sunt interșanjabile!
Roger a fost în mare parte un sofist de nota 10 („premisa că privilegiul persoanei întâi nu este un fenomen privat, ci public” - pg. 411), însă am întâlnit și mai răi decât el.
3,0/5 ⭐
August 20, 2021
Neapărat citită cu maturitate sexuala și emoțională
January 4, 2023
Hard reading, but worth it.
Unfortunately, extremely sensitive people would have trouble reading this book without the filter of their blind ideologies and world-views.
Unfortunately, extremely sensitive people would have trouble reading this book without the filter of their blind ideologies and world-views.
March 31, 2023
Scruton begins by analyzing the concept of sexual desire and its relationship to love, arguing that while sexual desire is often a component of romantic love, it is not identical to love itself. He then examines the role of sexual desire in human experience, including its relationship to pleasure, reproduction, and morality.
One of the key arguments of the book is that sexual desire is inherently tied to the concept of self, and that sexual desire is a way in which we express and explore our individual identity. Scruton draws on a wide range of philosophical and literary sources to support this argument, including the works of Plato, Augustine, and D.H. Lawrence.
Another important theme of the book is the relationship between sexual desire and the body. Scruton argues that sexual desire is not simply a matter of physical attraction, but is rather a complex interplay between the physical and the psychological. He explores the ways in which our bodies shape our experiences of sexual desire, and how our desires can also shape our understanding of the body.
Throughout the book, Scruton offers insightful and thought-provoking analyses of a wide range of topics related to sexual desire, including pornography, homosexuality, and the role of desire in human flourishing. He also draws on his own experiences and reflections to provide a personal and engaging perspective on the subject.
One of the key arguments of the book is that sexual desire is inherently tied to the concept of self, and that sexual desire is a way in which we express and explore our individual identity. Scruton draws on a wide range of philosophical and literary sources to support this argument, including the works of Plato, Augustine, and D.H. Lawrence.
Another important theme of the book is the relationship between sexual desire and the body. Scruton argues that sexual desire is not simply a matter of physical attraction, but is rather a complex interplay between the physical and the psychological. He explores the ways in which our bodies shape our experiences of sexual desire, and how our desires can also shape our understanding of the body.
Throughout the book, Scruton offers insightful and thought-provoking analyses of a wide range of topics related to sexual desire, including pornography, homosexuality, and the role of desire in human flourishing. He also draws on his own experiences and reflections to provide a personal and engaging perspective on the subject.
November 28, 2018
It is both refreshing and frustrating to read someone who is so far intellectually above oneself. Scruton is a master of both philosophy and the Western literary and poetic tradition, so this book is heavy with everything from Jean Paul Sartre to Shakespeare. Perhaps it has some traction in the intellectual world, but for this simple pastor it was too much, even for someone who (as far as I can understand him) agrees with many of his ideas.
November 19, 2023
While some opinions might be dated and reflect the author's time and context, the book is an amazing exploration of sexual desire. Roger Scruton explains facets of sexual desire through different types of love, with amazing references to art (in all its forms) and a sound structure of reason and philosophy. It is not a light read and this system of reasoning may be difficult to follow and comprehend, but it's totally worth it.
May 27, 2025
Scruton acknowledges that gender concepts nearly universally involve the divvying up of human virtue and activity/moral life between the sexes, and he apparently thinks it's worth it because the distinctly human approach to sexuality can't do without gender? I think we should prefer to say that there's something wrong with the human approach to sexuality.
July 17, 2025
يرى سكروتن أن الرغبة الجنسية ليست مجرد دافع بيولوجي، بل علاقة تتضمن رؤية الآخر كشخص كامل وليس كجسد فقط. وينتقد الاختزال الجنسي في التحليلات السلوكية أو الفرويدية، ويرى أن مثل هذه النظريات تفشل في فهم البعد الشخصي للرغبة.
برأيي الكتاب مشبّع بالنزعة الذكورية المحافظة المفرطة ويُغفل تعقيد تجربة الجنس.
برأيي الكتاب مشبّع بالنزعة الذكورية المحافظة المفرطة ويُغفل تعقيد تجربة الجنس.
July 28, 2020
Profound and difficult. I skimmed much of the middle section, but will revisit at some stage. The final two chapters, on morality and politics, were superb.
March 1, 2021
its very good
July 15, 2023
Al principio pensé qué podría saber Roger Scruton de deseo sexual pero hizo la pega de forma impecable como siempre.
October 19, 2023
The greatest book ever written on the subject of love, marriage, and perversion.
March 28, 2025
Vive la bourgeoisie !
February 1, 2017
This is definitely a great book with a big subject. Scruton believes that sexual desire is all about persons, because it goes beyond the mere instinct, he explains that a person is beyond desires and impulses because is capable of choosing his* actions based on reasons, and through reasoning and actions a person can ascribe or deny values to himself* or others.
A great feature of Scruton is that he has the ability to delve intelligently into any subject and give a satisfactory analysis and explanation, without obviating his points of view. I really liked this book, it's deep and leaves you thinking once you finish reading it.
A great feature of Scruton is that he has the ability to delve intelligently into any subject and give a satisfactory analysis and explanation, without obviating his points of view. I really liked this book, it's deep and leaves you thinking once you finish reading it.
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January 2, 2015Extremely put off by heterosexism/ conservative morals (I am rarely interested in entertaining the opinions of anyone who is quoted as saying 'The disappearance of female modesty and sexual restraint has made it hard for a man to believe, when a woman yields to his advances, that her doing so is a special tribute to his masculine powers, rather than a day-to-day transaction, in which he, like the last one, is dispensable').
March 13, 2023
a seriously impressive analytical lOok at the ending of brian yuzna's "the society" (1989)
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